System and method for configuring the remote control functionality of a portable device

ABSTRACT

A server device receives identity data retrieved from an appliance through use of a physical and logical interconnection referenced to a standard. The identity data is used at the server device to identify within a database having a plurality of appliance records, each of which is cross-referenced to an appliance, an appliance record having data in one or more record fields which matches the identity data retrieved from the appliance. A codeset identifier associated with the identified appliance record is then used to select from a plurality of codesets a codeset for use in configuring the portable device to command functional operations of the appliance.

RELATED APPLICATION INFORMATION

This application claims the benefit of and is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 14/245,151, filed on Apr. 4, 2014, which application claims the benefit of and is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/198,072, filed on Aug. 4, 2011, which application claims the benefit of and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/148,144, filed Apr. 18, 2008.

The disclosure within these applications is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Personal communication, productivity, and entertainment devices such as tablet computers, smart phones, portable email devices, e-books, hand-held games and/or game controllers, portable media players, etc. (all referred to hereafter as “smart devices”) are known to include features such as graphical user interfaces on color touch screens, wireless Internet capability, support for ancillary applications (sometimes referred to as “apps”) such as, for example, calendars, email, maps and navigation, etc. Such ancillary applications may be pre-installed in a smart device or may be made available for download by a user. Certain such apps may comprise an ability to issue commands to entertainment and other appliances, for example in conjunction with a GUI offering the features and functionality of a universal remote control as known in the art, in conjunction with a TV guide display to enable channel selection, etc. Typically such remote control apps may be provisioned with a library of command data and protocols suitable for controlling a plurality of appliances of different type and/or manufacture (a so-called “universal remote”). Such a command library and the hardware necessary to transmit operational commands to appliances may be incorporated into or made available to the smart device itself, or may take the form of a separate external device which is placed in communication with the smart device (i.e., a relay device or so-called “blaster”). Regardless, upon initial installation or subsequent replacement of a controlled appliance such universal remote control apps must generally be configured to match each particular appliance to be controlled to an appropriate set of command data and a protocol in the library. Disclosed herein are user-friendly and convenient methods for conducting such a configuration process.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to remote control systems and, more particularly, to a system and method for facilitating the set up and configuration of a portable device, e.g., a smart device which may incorporate universal remote control functionality, to command operation of one or more types of remotely controllable appliances of one or more manufacturers. Exemplary smart devices include but are not limited to Apple's “iPhone’ and “iPad,” Google's “Android” platform, Nintendo's “Wii U” controller, Blackberry's “Torch” or “PlayBook,” etc. Exemplary types of appliances include, but are not limited to televisions, digital video disc players (DVDs), cable or satellite set top boxes (STBs), digital video recorders (DVRs), audio video (AV) receivers, thermostats, game consoles, lighting systems, etc.

In order to rapidly and conveniently configure a smart device app and associated command library to match the appliances to be controlled, in accordance with the teachings of the instant invention the smart device may be temporarily connected to an appliance to ascertain that appliance's identity and thereby determine appropriate command data and protocol for control of that appliance. When said appliance is in communication with other remotely controllable appliances to form part of a local entertainment and/or environmental system, the identities of those other appliances may also be determined by the smart device, using the connected appliance as an agent. Additionally, in some embodiments configuration information regarding said local system may be communicated to the smart device by the agent appliance for use in the creation of activity macros; for use in localization of smart app displayed labels and menus; etc. Such information may comprise, by way of example, data regarding which media source appliances are attached to which input ports of a rendering device such as a TV monitor or AV receiver, thereby facilitating the creation of pre-configured smart device command sequences for use in initiating activities such as “Watch TV”, “Listen to Music”; language and menu settings of the connected appliance(s); etc.

In a preferred exemplary embodiment, the physical and logical interconnections between smart device and appliance, and amongst appliances, may be in accordance with the High Definition Media Interface (HDMI) specification and appliance identities may be derived from, inter alia, Consumer Electronic Control (CEC) or Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) data retrievable from appliances in compliance with that specification, and/or from Source Product Description (SPD) information frames embedded in a source appliance digital video stream in accordance with the Consumer Electronics Association specification CEA-861. However, it will be appreciated that other interconnection methods and/or protocols such as, by way of example without limitation USB, IEE1394 “Firewire”, UPnP, CEbus, etc. may be utilized to the same end, when appropriate for a particular embodiment.

A better understanding of the objects, advantages, features, properties and relationships of the invention will be obtained from the following detailed description and accompanying drawings which set forth illustrative embodiments and which are indicative of the various ways in which the principles of the invention may be employed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the various aspects of the invention, reference may be had to preferred embodiments shown in the attached drawings in which:

FIGS. 1 a and 1 b illustrate exemplary systems in which a smart device app configured in accordance with the instant invention may be utilized;

FIG. 2 illustrates exemplary interconnections which may be used during configuration of the smart device(s) of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 illustrates a series of steps which may be performed by a smart device during an HDMI-based enabled process; and

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary appliance identity database record which may be utilized in configuring a smart device app in accordance with this invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

By way of example, FIGS. 1 a and 1 b illustrate exemplary systems 102 and 104 wherein a smart device 100 may be adapted to issue commands to controllable appliances such as a TV 106, set top box (STB) 108, DVD player 110, etc. While illustrated in the context of a home entertainment system comprising a TV, STB, and DVD player, it is to be understood that controllable appliances may include, but need not be limited to, televisions, VCRs, DVRs, DVD players, cable or satellite converter set-top boxes (“STBs”), amplifiers, AV receivers, CD players, game consoles, home lighting, drapery, fans, HVAC systems, thermostats, personal computers, etc. In the illustrative example of FIG. 1 a, a smart device 100 may include both a universal remote control app and the necessary hardware to enable direct transmission of commands to appliances 106 through 110. Appliance commands may be issued in the form of infrared signals 112 as illustrated, or in any other suitable format, e.g., via an RF signal such as contemplated by RF4CE, Zwave, Bluetooth, etc.; ultrasonic signal; visible light; etc. as appropriate for the control of each particular appliance. In the example of FIG. 1 a these command signals may be issued directly by smart device 102 using, for example, the technology described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/043,915 which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In an alternative embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1 b, appliance commands 112 may be issued indirectly via a relay device 114 which is responsive to wireless communications 116 received from the universal remote control app resident in smart device 100, for example as described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/071,661, also incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

In either case, the remote control app and/or associated relay device must be provisioned with the specific command data and protocol (“codeset”) to which each of the to-be-controlled appliances is responsive. As is known in the art, this may take the form of a pointer or index into a library of codesets pre-stored locally in the memory of smart device 100 or of relay device 114; individual codesets downloaded to those devices during a configuration process; an item-by-item download of individual command codes on an as-required basis from a library stored locally on a PC or on an appliance such as STB 108 or TV 106, or stored remotely at a headend or internet accessible server; etc. Regardless, since the methods described herein to accomplish the identification of suitable codesets for controlled appliances may be generally applied without regard to the exact mechanisms by which said codesets are finally provisioned, it is to be understood that the embodiment described hereafter is by way of example only, and the techniques presented may pertain, mutatis mutandis, to any of the various possible equipment and code library configurations.

With reference to FIG. 2, in an exemplary embodiment a remote control app resident on a smart device 100 may be matched to the appliances to be controlled, for example a TV set 106 and/or a cable STB 108 and DVD player 110 by temporarily connecting an HDMI port 206 of smart device 100 to an available HDMI port 210 of an appliance to be controlled, e.g., TV 106 in the illustrative example, via an HDMI compatible cable 208. Once the connection is established, the remote app of smart device 100 may be placed into a setup mode in which mode the app may solicit device identification data from TV 106 such as, for example a CEC manufacturer ID and/or an EDID manufacturer number and product code. In a preferred embodiment, the data so obtained may be uploaded from the smart device to a server 200 via, for example a WiFi connection 204 to the Internet 202. Server 200 may include a database 216 which cross-references CEC and/or EDID device identity data to appliance command codesets, which database may be referenced to determine an appropriate command codeset for control of exemplary appliance 106. In alternate embodiments, the database in which appliance command codesets are cross-referenced to data that is itself referenced according to a standard may be locally resident in the smart device itself; or may be resident in an appliance accessible as part of a WiFi network such as for example a local PC or STB. Regardless, once determined the desired codeset may then be provisioned to the remote control app of smart device 100, in the form of a pointer or index into a local database; or in the form of a downloaded codeset block from a codeset database 218 stored on server 200; etc.; as appropriate.

Turning now to the flowchart presented in FIG. 3, once an exemplary smart device 100 has been attached to an appliance using HDMI cable 208, at step 300 a setup program which forms part of a remote control app installed on that smart device may be initiated, for example from a configuration or settings menu as is well known in the art. At step 302, the setup program may commence by issuing successive CEC compatible <Polling Message> transmissions (as defined in the HDMI specification and accompanying CEC supplement) to each of the possible type-specific CEC logical device addresses. By way of explanation, the CEC protocol may support up to 16 possible logical address values, with each value allocated to a particular appliance type: For example, a TV device may only assume logical address zero or 14; a playback device such as a DVD player may only use one of logical addresses 4, 8 or 11; a tuning device may only use one of logical addresses 3, 6, 7 or 10; etc. For purposes of receiving responses to a poll, the initiating device (smart device 100 in this example) in accordance with one version of the CEC specification may always assume address 15. Though smart device 100 is physically connected only to HDMI port 210 of TV 106, the CEC protocol allows for an appliance to act as a CEC Switch, i.e., to transparently route CEC communications to/from appliances connected to its other HDMI ports, such as STB 108 or DVD player 106 in the illustrative example. Accordingly in those instances where this functionality is supported by the host appliance to which the smart device is tethered, the setup program may be thereby enabled to interrogate downstream appliances.

If no device responses to the issued polling messages are detected at step 304 the setup program continues at step 320 to allow manual configuration by a user of the app. If, however, one or more responses are detected, at step 306 a CEC <Give Device Vendor ID> message is transmitted to the first responsive logical address value. In accordance with the CEC protocol, the appliance to which this message is directed may respond with a unique 24-bit vendor ID, which number is assigned to CEC-compliant manufacturers by the IEEE in accord with the standard. Upon receipt, at step 308 this vendor ID number, together with the CEC logical address from which it originated (being indicative of appliance type), may be forwarded by the setup program to a codeset identifier, for example a Web service resident on server 200.

Upon receiving a response from the codeset identifier service, at steps 310 and 312 the setup program may determine if the response constitutes a positive identification of a codeset for use in issuing commands to the indicated appliance, or if it comprises a request for additional information by way of disambiguation. If neither, it is assumed that the identifier service has failed to identify a suitable codeset, and the setup program continues at step 318 to determine if additional appliances remain to be identified. If the received response comprises a request for additional disambiguation information, such information may be retrieved at step 316 and forwarded to the codeset identification service for further processing. By way of example without limitation, such disambiguation data requests may be for Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) as specified by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA), retrievable from display devices via the HDMI interface and which may for example includes data fields corresponding to a Microsoft-assigned manufacturer ID and/or a manufacturer-assigned product code; for a response to a <Get Menu Language> CEC request (which may be indicative of a territory/market in which the appliance is currently installed); for responses to <Give OSD Name> or <Get CEC version> CEC requests; for retrieval of SPD data corresponding to an input HDMI port of the host appliance (i.e. TV 106 of the illustrative example) where such retrieval is supported by the host appliance; etc.; as appropriate for a particular embodiment or appliance. By way of explanation regarding SPD data, CEA standard CEA-861B specifies that a digital video source may optionally insert a periodic Source Product Description information frame into its output video stream. This “InfoFrame” may comprise a seven byte ASCII vendor name, a sixteen byte ASCII product description such as a model number, and a one byte binary product type identifier (e.g., 01h is a digital STB, 02h is a DVD player, 05h is digital video camera, etc.) Rendering devices such as TV 106 may optionally decode this data and use it to augment on-screen menu displays, etc.

Alternatively or in addition to the above, since CEC-compliant appliances are required to issue a <Feature Abort> response to any message relating to an unsupported feature, in some embodiments a codeset identification service may request that certain CEC transmissions be initiated to an appliance and the resulting response(s) reported, to allow exact identification of an appliance by verification of its support for certain features (or lack thereof).

If the received response is determined at step 310 to be indicative of the identity of an appliance control codeset, then at step 314 the remote control app of smart device 100 may be configured accordingly. As is known in the art, such configuration may take the form of storing a pointer to, or index into a preloaded local library of command codesets, provision of the required codeset as a data download from a server based codeset library 218, etc., as appropriate for a particular embodiment. Once configuration is completed, at step 318 the setup program next determines whether additional appliances remain to be identified. If so, processing returns to step 306 to repeat the above identification process for the next appliance. Once all appliances which responded to the polling request of step 302 have been subjected to the identification process, the setup continues at step 320, where additional user input may be solicited as necessary. Such user input may comprise, for example, provision of explicit model number information and/or codeset numbers, etc., to complete the identification and configuration of any appliances which were not responsive to the CEC polling request, which could not be uniquely identified by the automated codeset identification service, etc., after which the initial configuration of the remote control app of smart device 100 is complete. Since the various alternative methods for identification of appliance command codesets are well known in the art, for the sake of brevity these will be discussed further herein.

With reference now to FIG. 4, an exemplary embodiment of an appliance identification database 216 may comprise a group of records 400, one for each distinctly identifiable appliance, each record comprising a series of fields 402 through 436′ as illustrated. In the example presented, each appliance record 400 may include a basic appliance identity 440 which may comprise data fields such as appliance type 402, brand 404, model number 406, serial number or date range 408,410 (where necessary to ensure unique identification, for example where a manufacturer has changed an appliance feature in the middle of a model run) and the identifier 412 of an appliance command codeset for use in commanding operation of the appliance. In some instances, geographic or market region codes 414 may also form part of the basic appliance identity. The information comprising this basic appliance identity may be utilized in various prior art methods for configuring controlling devices to command operation of the appliance, for example matching a user provided brand and model number, printing set up code lists to be published in manuals, sequentially testing codesets corresponding to a particular appliance type and brand (and sometimes region), etc., all as well known in the art.

In addition to the above basic appliance identity data, an exemplary appliance identification database record 400 in accordance with the instant invention may include additional fields 416 through 436′ which comprise a second, electronic, identity 450 for the same appliance. Such an electronic identity may comprise a tabulation of data items which may be solicited electronically from the appliance, for example via the HDMI interconnection 208 of the illustrative embodiment. This data may include without limitation a CEC vendor ID 416, a CEC version 418, a CEC OSD name 420, an EDID manufacturer ID 422, an EDID product code 424, an EDID version/revision number 426, an SPD vendor name 428, and an SPD product description 430. In some embodiments, geographic region codes 414 may also form part of an electronic appliance identity, since these may be derivable from CEC <Get Menu Language> responses. It should also be noted that, due to practices such as private labeling, multi-sourcing, etc., the vendor/manufacturer ID and name fields 416, 422, and 428 are not necessarily synonymous with each other or with brand field 404.

Where necessary to ensure a unique identity for an appliance, additional data fields may be part of an appliance identity record 400. These may include for example further EDID discernable parameters 432 through 432′, such as video formats and resolutions supported, timing data, etc., and/or CEC challenge/response data fields 434,436. Such challenge/response fields may comprise an electronic command or query 434 to be issued to an appliance together with an expected response 436 to be returned by the appliance. By way of example without limitation, to distinguish between similar cable STBs which differ only by the presence or absence of a DVR option, a CEC <Give Deck Status> request may be issued in the expectation that the non-DVR STB response will be a CEC <Feature Abort> message. If necessary to ensure accurate identification of a particular appliance, multiple challenge/response data fields 434′,436′ may be provided.

In the illustrative embodiment, with the exception of appliance type 402 and codeset identifier 412, data fields which are not applicable or not available for a specific appliance may be set as “null”. For example, serial number range fields 408,410 may not be necessary, certain appliance types may not support EDID, etc.

In order to uniquely identify an appliance, an illustrative appliance identification service resident on and/or associated with server 200, for example, implemented by instructions stored on a non-transient, computer readable media accessible by the server 200, and interacting with an exemplary smart device set up app which operates generally in accordance with the logic previously described in connection with the flowchart of FIG. 3, may receive an initial communication from smart device 100 comprising a CEC vendor ID together with an indication of appliance type (e.g., the CEC logical address from which that vendor ID was retrieved.) The appliance identification service may apply those values as a mask to select only those records 400 of database 216 which match the requested criteria, i.e., a match in field 402 with the appliance type implied by the CEC logical address value retrieved from an appliance and a match in field 416 with the CEC vendor ID retrieved from the appliance. It will be appreciated that in various embodiments the data content of this initial communication may comprise other values, such as for example an SPD vendor name and product description, in place of or in addition to the values mentioned above, in which case the selection mask may be adjusted accordingly. If only a single match results, the identification is complete and the corresponding codeset identifier value from field 412 of that record may be returned to the setup app resident in smart device 100. If, however, multiple records meet the selection criteria the appliance identification service may then examine the contents of these records to determine which data field in that remaining subset exhibits the greatest diversity. Once the determination is made, a request for the retrieval of that data item from the appliance may be forwarded to the setup app resident in smart device 100. When the requested data item is returned by the app, this item may be added to the selection mask and the selection process repeated. In event that a requested item is not available, for example the current host appliance does not support SPD decoding and SPD data has been requested, the smart device setup app may respond in the negative in which case the currently requested item may be eliminated from the appliance identification matching process and a new request issued for an alternative data item. These steps may be iterated until either a single database record remains and its codeset identifier 412 can be communicated to the setup app; or no further selection criteria are available, i.e., every field 414 through 436′ has either been utilized or been found to contain a null value, in which case a failure may be communicated to the smart device setup app, allowing it to initiate a user message suggesting that an alternative set up method be employed.

Once fully provisioned with the command codesets necessary for control of a consumer's appliances, in certain embodiments a smart device remote control app in accordance with the instant invention may undergo additional customization while in physical communication with the controlled appliances via the exemplary HDMI connection. In one embodiment, the response(s) to a CEC <Get Menu Language> request may be utilized to adjust the menus, key labels, etc., of the remote control app to match those in use by the controlled appliances. Conversely, upon consumer request the language to which the smart device is currently regionalized may be conveyed to the controlled appliances via a CEC <Set Menu Language> request, thereby adapting the appliance displays to match the user preference settings of the smart device.

In instances where an appliance such as TV 106 is adapted to perform the beforementioned CEC switching function and is equipped to support such a query, that switching appliance may be requested to indicate which of its physical HDMI ports (e.g. 210 thru 214) are associated with which downstream CEC logical addresses (e.g., STB 108, DVD player 110, etc.) The data so acquired may then be utilized by a smart device remote control app to configure activity macros, for example without limitation “Watch TV” or “Watch a movie”, such that a command to select the appropriate HDMI input of TV 106 will be automatically issued when the activity is initiated. Such macro configuration may be completely automatic, or may require user input: For example where multiple media playback appliances are detected in a configuration (e.g., both a DVD player and Vudu streaming video on demand box) a user may be prompted to select which appliance is to be used for a “Watch movie” activity (it being understood that in cases such as this multiple “Watch movie” activities may also be configured). To facilitate user identification of the desired appliance, the prompt may include the appliances self-provided identities retrieved using CEC <Get OSD name> requests, appliance brand names and/or model numbers supplied by a codeset identification service, TV input port numbers, or any combination thereof as appropriate.

While various concepts have been described in detail, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that various modifications and alternatives to those concepts could be developed in light of the overall teachings of the disclosure. For example, while the illustrative equipment configuration presented above utilizes a television set as the HDMI interconnection focal point and host appliance for attachment of a smart device, it will be appreciated that in alternate configurations another device such as an AV receiver, a set top box, a PC, etc. may serve equally well as a focal point and host appliance to which a smart device may be temporarily attached for set up purposes. Furthermore, in those instances where no appliance in the configuration is capable of supporting CEC switch functionality, it will also be appreciated that a smart device in accordance with the invention may nevertheless be individually attached to multiple appliances in sequence in order to perform an electronically-enabled setup. It will also be appreciated that in certain embodiments, for the sake of efficiency multiple appliance-identifying data items may be gathered and jointly forwarded to an appliance identification service as a single transaction, rather than in a step-by-step fashion as described above. Additionally, while illustrated using an HDMI connection, CEC protocol, and EDID and SPD InfoFrame data values it will be appreciated that various other connectivity and appliance identification data gathering methods may be equally adaptable to the purposes described herein; standards may evolve or be amended to support additional features; etc., and that accordingly the exemplary appliance identification database contents presented herein are by way of illustration only and not intended as an exhaustive tabulation of all possible identification data points or parameters that are or may become available for utilization by the appliance identification methods described herein.

While described in the context of functional modules and illustrated using block diagram and/or flowchart formats, it is to be understood that, unless otherwise stated to the contrary, one or more of the described functions and/or features may be integrated in a single physical device and/or a software module, or one or more functions and/or features may be implemented in separate physical devices or software modules. It will also be appreciated that a detailed discussion of the actual implementation of each module is not necessary for an enabling understanding of the invention. Rather, the actual implementation of such modules would be well within the routine skill of an engineer, given the disclosure herein of the attributes, functionality, and inter-relationship of the various functional modules in the system. Therefore, a person skilled in the art, applying ordinary skill, will be able to practice the invention set forth in the claims without undue experimentation. It will be additionally appreciated that the particular concepts disclosed are meant to be illustrative only and not limiting as to the scope of the invention which is to be given the full breadth of the appended claims and any equivalents thereof.

All patents cited within this document are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for configuring a portable device to command functional operations of a first appliance and a second appliance, comprising: retrieving by the first appliance from the second appliance through use of a physical and logical interconnection between the first appliance and the second appliance that is referenced to a standard first data indicative of an identity of the second appliance; obtaining from the first appliance the first data and second data indicative of a port of the first appliance by which the second appliance is interconnected with the first appliance through use of the physical and logical interconnection; using the first data to identify within a database having a plurality of appliance records each of which is cross-referenced to an appliance an appliance record having data in one or more record fields which matches the identity of the second appliance; using a codeset identifier associated with the identified appliance record to select from a plurality of codesets a codeset for use in commanding functional operations of the second appliance; and using the selected codeset and the second data to configure the portable device whereupon, in response to the portable device being placed into a mode for use in commanding functional operations of both the first appliance and the second appliance, the portable device transmits to the first appliance a command to cause the first appliance to select the port of the first appliance by which the second appliance is interconnected with the first appliance through use of the physical and logical interconnection and assigns commands from the selected codeset to one or more input elements of the portable device such that activations of the one or more input elements will cause the portable device to transmit commands to control corresponding functional operations of the second appliance.
 2. The method as recited in claim 1, comprising providing the first data to an Internet server device whereupon the Internet server device uses the first data to identify within the database having a plurality of appliance records each of which is cross-referenced to an appliance the appliance record having data in one or more record fields which matches the identity of the second appliance.
 3. The method as recited in claim 2, comprising causing the Internet server device to use the codeset identifier associated with the identified appliance record to select from the plurality of codesets the codeset for use in commanding functional operations of the second appliance and causing the Internet server to provide the identified codeset to the portable device.
 4. The method as recited in claim 2, comprising causing the Internet server device to provide the codeset identifier associated with the identified appliance record to the portable device and causing the portable device to select from the plurality of codesets the codeset for use in commanding functional operations of the second appliance and causing the Internet server to provide the identified codeset to the portable device.
 5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the interconnection is referenced to the High Definition Media Interface specification.
 6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the first data comprises at least data indicative of a Consumer Electronic Control (CEC) vendor ID and a CEC logical address.
 7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the first appliance comprises a media routing device and wherein the second appliance comprises a media source device.
 8. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the portable device comprises a smart device having a remote control application installed thereon.
 9. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the mode for use in commanding functional operations of both the first appliance and the second appliance comprises an activity mode of the portable device. 